


just a little bit of rest by the side of the road

by chickenfree



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:15:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenfree/pseuds/chickenfree
Summary: Dan can never quite tell if he’s talking in his sleep when he’s like this.“Snakes,” Phil slurs after a beat. “Nuh-uh.”
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 18
Kudos: 132





	just a little bit of rest by the side of the road

“Are you – oh.”

Dan pulls his knuckles away from the door, even though he doesn’t think it was that loud in the first place. 

Phil’s still got his video open, frozen at the end of a half-done effect sequence.

Phil himself is long gone. He’s sacked out on the couch, arm curled around the pillow he’d dragged in from the bedroom the other day and hidden in the cabinet like Dan wouldn’t notice. His glasses are pushed halfway up his forehead, old soft blanket pulled up to his chin.

Dan pads over, clumsily dropping to his knees at the side of the couch as quietly as he can. Phil stirs in his sleep, hands clenching into his pillow.

“Hey, you want a real bed for a bit?”

“No,” Phil mumbles, or something like it.

Dan can never quite tell if he’s talking in his sleep when he’s like this.

“Snakes,” Phil slurs after a beat. “Nuh-uh.”

“Okay,” Dan says, reaching out and gently squeezing his shoulder a few times. “Hey, Phil?”

Phil squirms and mumbles and eventually blinks his eyes open, staring back.

“Hey,” Dan repeats. 

“Hey,” Phil croaks, tugging the pillow closer to his middle. He sits up, sort of, although it looks like he might fall over at any moment. He looks all types of out-of-sorts – eyes glazed and rimmed red, hair askew, shirt collar crumpled sideways. 

Dan reaches out, smoothing the worst of his wild hair. “You ill?”

“No.”

“Migraine?”

“No,” Phil sighs. 

Dan hums, considering. “Forgot to sleep last night?”

“Uh.”

Phil gives him a sheepish smile, even though he can barely keep his eyes open. They’ve been so good about sticking to their schedule, sleeping at normal people hours even when it feels unnecessary. Dan runs his hand down Phil’s neck. He presses his fingers in the spot at the bend that always makes Phil’s eyes slip shut, soft sigh escaping him.

“Water?” Phil asks, quiet.

“In the bedroom. You wanna come sleep?”

Phil shakes his head, groaning quietly. He lists into Dan’s hand for a minute, and then away, toppling back into the couch.

“Gonna finish this,” Phil mumbles.

“You are fucking not.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s bad for your brain to sleep with the lights on,” Dan says. He can’t remember if that’s true. It sounds true, though. “You’re gonna turn into a bat.”

“Nice.”

Dan snorts. He pokes at Phil’s side with his knuckle. “You can stay up if you can tell me a full English sentence, right now.”

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” Phil says, muffled at the end as he tries to burrow into the pillow.

Dan pokes at him again, making Phil squirm. “A full sentence that you  _ didn’t _ memorize.”

Phil swats at his hand, then. “Shuddup. Hate words.”

“English much stupid?” Dan parrots, trying and failing to catch Phil’s flailing hands in his own.

“Much stupid,” Phil confirms. His eyes are shut again, body curling around his pillow. His shoulders are pulled up defensively towards his ears, like Dan will leave him alone if he’s just stubborn enough.

“I’m gonna carry you,” Dan threatens.

“No. Awful potato bag.”

Dan can’t help the laugh that escapes, too loud by several degrees. He wedges a hand under Phil’s shoulder and another under his knees. He awkwardly scrambles to his feet, trying to keep his haphazard grip on Phil. 

Dan tugs this way and that. He’s not entirely gentle, but – sleepy Phil is big, and stubborn, and won’t be dissuaded from his couch surfing plans easily.

Phil resists, predictably. He goes boneless for a minute, and then comically stiff, and then back to boneless. Eventually Dan gets him halfway off the sofa, knees dangling over the edge. He somehow manages to get both feet under him at the last second instead of falling off, miraculously saving himself once again from certain sofa-cliff-related death. Dan thinks that it’s one of the two physical feats he’s very good at.

Phil ends up upright, for his next trick. He has a funny way of wobbling like a baby deer, swaying uncertainly like he’s at sea.

Dan grabs his glasses from where they’ve fallen onto the sofa. He glances at Phil. He’s rubbing his mostly closed eyes. Dan pockets them, carefully, since it seems like venturing anywhere other than straight to bed is beyond Phil.

“C’mere,” Dan murmurs, reaching for him again. 

Phil frowns at him suspiciously for a minute. Dan’s pretty sure he’s remembering the times Dan has actually tried to pick him up – and probably the one time Phil decided to be uncooperative and was summarily dropped in the hallway. It was a less-than-great way to wake up.

“I’m not gonna lift you,” Dan says.

“‘’M a potato sack,” Phil mutters, or something like it. Dan only kind of understands it, as shorthand for  _ I’m heavy  _ and  _ I’m uncooperative  _ and  _ you’re bad at lifting things.  _ It makes him laugh, anyways.

“I know,” he says, patient. “Which is why I’m not lifting you. Just c’mere.”

Phil’s still scowling, swaying in some imaginary breeze with a look like he’s about to fall asleep standing up and crumple right there. 

Dan wraps his hand around his arm again, gently tugging. Phil gives up and slumps into his side almost immediately. He sighs when his head flops onto Dan’s shoulder.

Their feet are pointing in entirely different directions, which makes walking nearly impossible. Phil drags his feet and manages to stumble more than once.

“Your life just flashed before  _ my  _ eyes,” Dan says, after Phil trips on air for the third time. 

“Walking’s stupid,” Phil informs him. “Too many legs.”

Dan takes a deep breath. He’s suddenly exhausted. He can’t tell if it’s carrying Phil or the emotional stress of trying to protect a Phil who mostly doesn’t care about his own safety that’s getting to him – or if it’s just that it’s three in the morning and he’s inexplicably standing in the hall instead of sleeping.

He leans against the wall, closing his own eyes. Phil settles warm against his side, for a moment, before leaning in to press a clumsy kiss to Dan’s jaw.

“Love you,” Phil mumbles. “Sorry.”

“‘S’alright. You were gonna do a video like this?”

“Felt – I’unno. Creative?”

Dan laughs. He knows exactly that feeling. He’s been on the other side of this enough. 

He cracks his eyes open, just in time to catch Phil looking up at him, smiling slow and drowsy. He looks a little bit more awake.

“Can we go to bed?” Phil asks, softly. 

“You gonna walk on two feet this time?”

“Gonna hop.”

Dan huffs another laugh, scrunching his nose at him until Phil very pointedly turns and takes one tiny, awkward hop down the hall.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Daye and Cat for doing the first look, and to Zoom for letting me take conference calls with the mic and video off so I can write fic under my desk while "participating."
> 
> Come visit me at [@chickenfreeblog](chickenfreeblog.tumblr.com), where we sure are doing something.


End file.
